I am still drawn by poetry and sentimentality. In the caves of my head, I've built cities and castles in a much kinder world. Prone to anger, and prone not to expressing anger. Bottle it up. Drink the bottle.
What I learned, at almost Forty-two, is that I should never tell anyone anything.
May I be granted the strength to take my pain inward, bear it quietly, with good old Uncle Walt's perfect nonchalance.
I didn't wake up early enough for the Sunday morning bike or run. So I start a new book and had coffee at home. Listened to jazz on an overcast Sunday morning. A roll call: Coltrane, Baker, Fitzgerald, Holiday, Davis, Evans, Ellington, Jones, Vaughan. Winehouse. No matter how dingy the room is, I'm in the fanciest cafe in the world.
D. just finished a 11-hour shift. We lounge around the living room and catch up on That 90s Show.
Now, I've got to wash the car. And then pick-up my new progressive glasses. Skin
tone, lightweight 6 gram frame coated with Crizal Sapphire built-in with
ultraviolet filters. In a matter of minutes, I've adapted to using bifocals. Grab two bags of croissant because Kuya is crazy about them.
I drove back and we watched ballet in the afternoon. Fast food dinner. Swung by the bookstore for supplies, then printer ink. We had to do some homework when we went back home. I must've had a drink.
V. writes a diary too.
Act I. I couldn't count exactly, but roughly around 40 young ballet dancers in flowery tutus open with Spring. A re composition of Vivaldi. The song that's on the top of my playlist when I'm Zwifting. We talked about it after the show. "Yes, I hear it when I'm in the toilet and you're Zwifting in the other room." Kuya says, in his amusing, budding sense of humor. "It makes me feel like royalty." V. says, dreamily and as if her dreams were real. Here we are, four of us, on the 5th row of the orchestra section of St. Cecilia's Hall in St. Scholastica's. Flesh and blood performance instead of watching something in another 2D screen as we mostly did during the pandemic. It's the first time we stepped inside a theater again since, and even if the performers were mostly grade school and high school students, the transcending effect of art and the efficacy of that magic courses through me and my eyes well up.
It must've been what the teacher mentioned. Be kind and be generous in your applause, she tells the audience of parents and classmates, because the performers did most of the practice and lessons online. In her opening speech, Teacher A. revealed that she is battling cancer. She found out around Christmas and she was wearing a scarf on her head. The dancers dance and the show goes on they've all already won.
During the curtain call, they played one of the songs they performed with, String Quartet No. 3, Mishima. Another song I've been Zwifting to. I'm going to Zwift to it again and I'm going to have to remember this. The day when the dancers won.
